


Curiosity Didn't Kill This Cat

by unadrift



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Abuse of Quantum Physics, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 17:45:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1866756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unadrift/pseuds/unadrift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm confused," Rachel says. "Are you two dating or not?"<br/>Danny sighs. "You remember that thing with the cat in the box? The one that's both dead and alive?"<br/>"Schroedinger's cat?" <br/>"It's kind of like that."<br/>"Okay," Rachel says. She clearly has no idea what he's talking about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity Didn't Kill This Cat

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be fun, and a little silly, and what do you know, it actually turned out that way. (Well, for me at least.) I'm ignoring the big plot developments of the show, because, well, I mostly disapprove of the stuff that's been happening on that front, and I kind of miss the old times. Actually, this doesn't tie into canon in any serious way at all, so. Like I said, just a bit of fun. Unbeta'd, too.

It all started with a tiny little lapse in concentration.

Danny isn't usually one to let his mind wander during work hours, especially not in the office, but, come on. If he has to listen to one more rendition of how those beautiful waves were conquered on this beautiful Hawaiian morning, complete with yay-high hand gestures and swooshing sounds, Danny cannot be blamed for thinking longingly about drowning himself in the restroom sink.

It's much more healthful for everyone involved if he tunes out such talk. Especially considering that he is no longer permitted to contribute to any conversation that revolves around the beach, the weather, pineapples, the rain forest, or surfing.

Problem is, Steve and Kono tackle police work with the same enthusiasm they do surfing, so the transition from water sports into real grown-up topics is sometimes hard to pinpoint.

After a few minutes with no detectable transition at all, Danny feels entitled to amble away from Steve and Kono's beach-bum talk and towards his office, still thinking about the errands he has to run before he can pick up Grace on Friday. It's almost time to call it a night anyway.

When Danny is giving the finishing touches to his latest exercise in creative writing, sorry, _arrest report_ , Steve sticks his head in the door.

"Tonight, eight o'clock, _Bliz_ , right?" he says and points a finger.

"Sure thing," Danny says, before he has fully processed the information.

Steve flashes him a quick smile. "And you need to dress the part. No tie, you hear me?"

Of course Danny wants to protest, but Steve is already gone.

Kono has apparently gone home as well, and since Chin wasn't there in the first place, Danny is left alone at headquarters, pondering why Steve just asked him to show up at a gay club tonight.

Because, yes, Danny remembers where he knows the name from: That case with the undead iguana, the guerilla knitting group and Bart the go-go dancer. Bart the go-go dancer who worked at _Bliz_.

And Steve asked Danny to dress nicely. He asked Danny to dress the part for a gay club.

He lets that sink in for another New Jersey minute. And then, in a panic, completely in a panic, which is his only excuse, he dials Rachel's number.

"I think Steve asked me out," he blurts out without preamble.

Rachel will laugh about this later. She will laugh about this so hard Danny will fear for her life. Or, not so much anymore, at that point. But for the moment, she is stunned into silence.

"Hello to you too, Daniel," is what she finally comes up with.

"Rachel. Um."

After a long moment of silence which Danny, uncharacteristically, feels unfit to fill, she sighs. "Why do you think it is okay for you to ask me about this? Did I ever ask you for dating advice?"

"Dating ad... I'm not asking you for dating advice! This is completely different! I'm not dating anyone, as you very well know. This is just Steve, asking me to meet him." At her pointed refusal to grace this with an answer, he feels compelled to add, "At a gay club. He asked me to meet him tonight at a shiny, sparkly club, frequented by bare-chested, usually gorgeous men. What is that about?"

Rachel sighs again. It' could be a condition or something, she should have that checked out. "How exactly is this different from me asking you about such things? Because he's a guy? Because I know him? Because you work for him?"

"With him," Danny corrects. "I work _with_ him." He can practically see her inquisitive eyebrow. "And I'm not dating..." he starts. "Christ, this is crazy."

"What happened, exactly?" she asks in here reasonable voice.

Danny always hated that voice. He hated it kind of a lot. 

He tells her anyway.

"And you're calling me why?" is the extent of her reaction afterwards.

"Uh," says Danny.

"You don't know if you should go through with it?"

Danny thinks about this. Imagines Steve on a barstool in gay-club-appropriate lack of clothing, looking around searchingly, waiting for someone who is not going to show up.

"I... I don't know what to wear," he says.

Rachel snickers, shockingly unladylike. "Well, I can help with that."

*

The club is strategically and sparsely lit, and it's crowded, but he spots Steve immediately at the bar. Also, that's Bart right there on that tiny stage in the corner, almost naked, practically naked, and, and, what the fuck, oiled or something, how else would anyone get their muscles to gleam like that? And, oh hey, he's rubbing himself obscenely against the bars of his authentic-looking medieval torture cage, and... Yeah. Danny looks away and squeezes through the gaggle of people who are laying siege on the bar.

"Hey," Steve greets him, smiling, and, god, leans forward to kiss his cheek. "You're cutting it close," he murmurs and doesn't move back. His hand stays on Danny's biceps, and Danny's head is empty, so empty, an emptiness the likes of which it hasn't seen since the night Rachel asked him to marry her.

"Where's your radio?" Steve asks, close enough so that his lips should be almost, almost, brushing his ear.

Danny is somewhat overwhelmed. "My... Huh?" he says.

"Damn," Steve swears, crowding even closer against him. "Craig's here. He's early. Unlike other people I could mention. Kono, tell me you got the back covered."

Her tinny answer in Steve's ear is almost audible, and, oh crap. _Crap._ This is work. This is them apprehending Michael Craig, a material witness-slash-possible-suspect in a murder investigation that's been on hold for lack of leads.

This is... This is one very good reason to never tune anyone out ever again, Danny thinks, as he plows his way through the masses of glitter-decorated bodies on the dance floor toward the back exit, after Mike spots them and makes a break for it.

*

"Seriously, your radio?"

"I..." Danny says. His face is radiating heat and he can't do anything about it. "I couldn't find it, okay? I could either leave you guys hanging or show up without it."

"Chin was right outside in the van. He could have given you..."

"No time," Danny interrupts him. "There wasn't any time."

Steve narrows his eyes. "You saw Craig outside, is that it?"

"Yes!" Danny latches onto the explanation like a drowning man onto a piece of driftwood. "Yes, I saw him outside, and I thought to myself, this is the guy, this is our suspect, how rude of him to show up this early, I better get a move on and tell my team."

"Which you didn't," Steve points out.

"You saw him before I could even open my mouth, so will you just, for god's sake, please, just let it rest, Steven, for once in your life. I will recover my radio from wherever it's currently hiding out." (On Danny's kitchen counter, next to the cookie jar, not that anyone will ever find out.) "I will mark this down as the one day I completely failed at police work and vow to do better. Okay?"

Steve opens his mouth, closes it again, tilts his head thoughtfully and says, "Okay."

Danny does not for one second delude himself into thinking this is over. Drowning in the bathroom sink seems more and more appealing the longer this day goes on.

*

Rachel calls him the next day. "How did your date go?"

Danny groans and buries his head in his hands. Then he tells her everything. And _then_ he gets to listen to her completely lose it for a good five minutes.

"This is priceless," she gasps at one point. "This is... I am going to tell this story at your commitment ceremony."

"My _what_?" Danny squawks.

"Commitment ceremony," she repeats. "The one you and Steve are going to have. On the beach. At sunset, barefoot, with flowers in your hair..." This sets her off all over again.

"I hate you so much right now," Danny says and hangs up.

He half-planned to mention how this isn't even remotely funny, how this could have been a complete disaster, how he's incredibly lucky the bust went down with no more than the regular amount of hitch, and no one's the wiser about the suspicious absence of his radio. He planned to tell her all this in a reasonable tone of voice (i.e. shouting). But. Seriously. He doesn't have to take this shit.

*

"What's a commitment ceremony? Mommy said you could explain it to me," says Grace the following Saturday over a shave ice.

Danny breathes down a good amount of his frozen dessert and spends some time coughing it back up. His little girl is starting to look worried by the time he manages to say, "It's something like a marriage, where two people commit to staying together."

"Like you and Uncle Steve?" she asks.

Danny has to wonder if Rachel coached her. "No, monkey, it's not for work partners. It's for people who are in love and decide to spend their lives together."

She thinks about that for a minute. "But isn't that what married people do?"

And this is the point where he gets to explain same sex relationships to their daughter, because Rachel is a scheming floozy with a mean streak a mile wide.

*

"You brought your radio this time?" Steve feigns surprise. He feigns an excessive amount of it.

"Yes." Danny rolls his eyes and straps on his tac vest. "As you can plainly see. It's right here in my ear. If we could please not dwell on events long past and get back to the matter at hand?"

"As you wish, Danno." Steve flashes him an evil, evil grin, Kono looks between them with an amused expression, only Chin seems unruffled as ever.

Danny loves Chin the most. Maybe he should mention that more often.

It takes the team less than twenty minutes to get shit done and the bad guys arrested, and for once nothing at all explodes in the process. Steve looks a little disappointed, so Danny offers to buy the beers that night at the bar.

Rachel calls when they just started on their third bottle.

"Hello Daniel," she greets, then she pauses. "Are you in a bar? Did Steve invite you to go out again?"

Danny sputters. "Rachel! I told you! He…" Just in time he notices Steve, Kono and Chin watching him with matching curious expressions.

Danny gets away from the table as quickly as he can manage without tripping over any furniture and says," He never asked me out. I told you what that was all about. I told you what a disaster that could have…"

"No need to shout," she cuts him off. "Jesus, Daniel, calm down."

"Just…" Danny rubs his forehead in frustration. "Just let it go, okay?"

Rachel sighs audibly. It must be that condition of hers flaring up again. "You know, I think you were onto something that night. Maybe you should just hook up with your Commander McGarrett and see what happens. "

"My what? Are you… Steve is not _my_ anything."

"Are you certain? If he gets you this riled up... All that passion has to come from somewhere. It has to go somewhere, too."

"It's you!" Danny says, possibly a little too loudly, and stabs a finger, which Rachel can't see, in a direction where she is definitely not located. " _You_ are getting me riled up right now, riled up like you wouldn't believe, and the farthest thing from my mind at the moment is hooking up with you."

"Thank god for that. My husband wouldn't be too impressed if he… Grace, what are you doing up? It's long past your bedtime."

And because Grace is up anyway, and because sometimes Rachel is not a completely mean person, Danny gets to speak to his little girl for three minutes. Then Rachel reveals the reason she called in the first place, namely to ask if he could possibly take Grace the following weekend.

Things don't look so bad after that.

"Everything okay?" Kono asks when he gets back to the table.

They all look concerned, and yeah, the show he put on probably wasn't reassuring, even from a distance.

"What?" he says, gesturing. "This big-ass grin on my face didn't clue you in? Yes, I'm good."

"Good," Steve echoes and relaxes back into his chair. "Then buy me another beer, Danno."

Chin and Kono hold out their empty bottles as well.

"Why, oh why, is no one on this damn team a cheap date? Is that really too much to ask?"

Steve smiles at him in half-drunken bliss. Danny wants to keep looking at him. He goes and buys more beers instead.

*

"We cannot always go to Uncle Steve's place, even if he has a nice beach and a grill and spoils us both rotten," Danny says.

"But he invited us."

"That he did," Danny has to concede the point. It was a surprisingly civil and somewhat normal conversation, and the actual invitation wasn't even phrased as an order.

"He said his house is nicer than the rat-infested hell-hole you call an apartment," Grace explains.

Right. It was a civil conversation up to that point.

"Be sure to tell your Mom all about how Uncle Steve said that where you could hear him, okay, monkey?"

Although, Danny can't really blame him. His daughter, Danny has long been convinced, must be part bat. Rachel's side of the family, naturally.

*

"Hey Gracie, you want a burger?" Steve shouts.

She shrieks her approval and leaves Danny with a half-finished sandcastle, the construction of which he will now have to abandon, since his daughter has not seen fit to share her vision regarding the project with him. If he finishes it now, she'll only make him fix it later.

He dusts off his trousers and trudges through the sand – the stupid, stupid sand – toward the house, ignoring the twinge in his knee. Once he's seated in his usual chair on the lanai, Steve puts a plate containing one delicious-looking burger down in front of him and says, "There's an icepack in the fridge."

"So?"

"Don't be an idiot, Danno." Steve sounds fond, and his eyes go all crinkly at the corners, and this, _this_ is why Danny gets wrong ideas.

Grace bounces over to him. "Are you hurt? Does it hurt badly? Should I get the ice pack for you?"

"It's just the old bones creaking," he jokes. "But yes, I'd appreciate that, Nurse Williams."

Grace beams and says sincerely, "You're not old, Danno. Uncle Steve is waaaay older than you, right?"

Uncle Steve looks up from his own burger and raises an eyebrow.

"Why, thank you, monkey," Danny says and grins across the table at the supposed Methuselah, who is not at all waaaay older than Danny but still refrains from correcting her. "Maybe the old man can still manage to pass me the barbecue sauce?"

Steve takes the abuse with his good-natured happy-labrador face and does as asked, because he's as much a puddle of goo in the face of Grace than her own father is. It's somewhat reassuring.

When her burger is half-eaten, Grace does her thing again, because of course she does. "Danno, what does it mean when you 'hook up' with someone?"

Steve suffers from a sudden lemonade-induced coughing fit. Rightly so. Why should Danny be the only one to have to deal with this stuff?

"Monkey," Danny says, after clearing his throat. "How come you never ask your mother these things?"

Steve is looking at him now, he just knows. Steve is going to enjoy the hell out of this. It's a profound relief that the man is seriously lacking context.

"You always explain everything so well, Danno." Grace smiles angelically, which Danny takes to mean that he explains things to her, period. Specifically things that Rachel would rather deny exist in the face of their little angel, like swear-words, all things sexual, and the entirety of evil in the world.

Danny sighs and gives it his best shot. He doesn't whip out the birds and the bees, for which he deserves a medal. He sticks with "when two people like each other very much, yes, like mommy and daddy once did" and goes from there. Okay, his definition of 'hooking up' turns out a bit more permanent and meaningful than it tends to be in the real world, so what? Grace isn't old enough for the real world yet.

Afterwards, Grace nods seriously. "I understand," she says and takes another bite from her burger.

Finally, Danny brings himself to meet Steve's eyes and shrugs in a _Kids! Where do they get this stuff?_ kind of way. Steve smiles at them both and shakes his head.

He leans over to Grace and says conspiratorially, "Your Danno is a hopeless romantic, did you know that?"

She tilts her head and looks at Steve, considering. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No, it's good, don't worry," Steve says and flashes Danny a quick smile.

Danny has to look away, because wrong ideas. So, so many of them.

Later, much later, Grace falls asleep in Steve's old bedroom and Steve goes to get the guest room ready for Danny (which was not supposed to happen again; they were supposed to return to his rat-infested hell-hole of an apartment this time, they really were, and this is not okay, Danny knows it isn't, but Grace has a toothbrush in Steve's medicine cabinet, and she was so sleepy already after the burgers and the ice cream and the sandcastles and the playful wrestling with Steve in the surf that left them both wet and in stitches about something concerning jellyfish that Danny still doesn't get).

Danny pulls out his phone and texts Rachel. _Please, please, PLEASE do not talk to me about adult topics again with Grace in earshot. My blood pressure thanks you._

_Don't let Steve spoil her too much, and you have a deal_ , she texts back.

How she knows they're at Steve's, he has no idea. And he doesn't want to speculate, because Rachel scares him more than ever these days.

*

The spectacular and effective annihilation of a kidnapping ring calls for pizza, at the very least. They agree on that, only Chin and Kono are otherwise engaged. So in the end, it's just the two of them at Steve's house, lounging on the sofa, watching awful action movies and ordering food.

When the doorbell rings, Steve gets up and pays the delivery guy without any fuss.

"Are you ill?" Danny asks, once Steve gets back to the living room with two pizza boxes. "You voluntarily paid for my meal just then, you realize that, right? Mister I-left-my-wallet-in-my-other-cargo-pants."

Steve shoots him a very dark look. "Do you want beer?" he asks, but it sounds like a threat.

Danny raises his hands. "Fine, forget I said anything. Yes, I would very much like a beer. And thanks for the pizza."

They munch on their slices and watch the movie, until Steve says, "Want to catch the game on Friday?"

"Sure," Danny says. It's a given that this will happen at Steve's house, the place with the bigger TV and generally more pleasant accommodations, as Steve never tires to point out.

Just before Danny falls asleep on the sofa, his head tilting towards Steve's shoulder, he wonders if Steve will pay for their food again on Friday. He wonders if he should bring wine.

*

"I'm confused," Rachel says. "Are you two dating or not?"

Danny sighs into the phone. "You remember that thing with the cat in the box? The one that's both dead and alive?"

"Schroedinger's cat?" Rachel asks. She should know; she was the one who introduced him to the story in the first place, reading it to him as an amusing tidbit from the science pages of the newspaper over Sunday morning breakfast.

Steve's rendition of the same concept came much later. It was a lot more technical and far less amusing.

"It's kind of like that," Danny says.

"Okay," Rachel says. She clearly has no idea what he's talking about.

"It's like… We're both?" Danny says. "Or we could be both? You know, like the cat is both dead and alive, and you don't know for sure until you check. Steve and I, we're friends and we're more than that. Both look true to me. Both _feel_ true to me, and I can't get this sorted out, one way or the other. Maybe I'm not reading him right. Or maybe I'm just going crazy. You know, there's a good possibility that's the case. I cast myself as, what, part of the cat in this scenario? Something is seriously wrong with me, I'm shutting up now."

Rachel is silent for a long minute, thinking, as it turns out, about completely irrelevant things. "I'm not sure the analogy holds when the observer is inside the box himself."

Danny groans. "Really, Rachel? Could you be any less helpful?"

"Daniel," she says. "Maybe it's time to open the box and look?"

He knows she's right.

He'll have to devise an experiment for that. It's the scientific thing to do. Ironically, Steve would be the perfect person to help with this. But hey, maybe he already did.

*

Danny waits until it's just Steve and him at headquarters one evening. Then he wanders into Steve's office and says casually, "Tonight at _Giano's_ , around eight, okay?"

Steve looks up, frowns, and says slowly, "Okay."

That's good enough for Danny, who is out of there like the place is on fire, before Steve can ask any questions.

Let Steve make of that what he will. In fact, Danny insists that Steve make of that what he will.

Because Steve is apparently the smarter person, damn him, Danny has to ignore the six calls he receives from Steve's cell while he showers and gets dressed.

*

Danny had planned to be early, but Steve intercepts him in the parking lot of the restaurant. Cursing inwardly, because nothing ever goes to plan where Steve is involved, Danny gives him a quick once over.

"What?" Steve says and follows Danny's searching gaze. "What is it?"

Danny can't see a radio or any other piece of equipment on Steve's person. This bodes well. And he looks… good. He looks really good.

"Danny, you're starting to freak me out. What am I doing here? What is this?"

"What do _you_ think this is?"

Steve looks cross, and yes, that's constipation face right there. "You asked me here," he points out. "You should know."

"Steven," Danny says and lets a tiny bit of his desperation show. "I need to know. I need to know whether or not we're the cat in the box, and if we're the cat, what discrete state we're in here, because this, this _superposition_ is killing me."

Okay, so he read up on Schroedinger's cat, and maybe, possibly, he's taking this whole analogy a little further than could strictly be considered sane.

Steve sure stares like Danny lost his marbles. "You want to try that again?"

"Oh, screw it," Danny says, and kisses him.

As experiments go, this one shines light on the matter in question pretty damn effectively.

"Okay, this is one discrete state I can get behind," Danny mumbles against Steve's lips, before Steve prevents any further talking, also pretty damn effectively. 

Danny, for once, likes his methods a lot.

They never do get around to entering the restaurant. Some time later they're walking down the beach, hand in hand, in the moonlight, and it's all so deeply romantic that it kind of hurts Danny somewhere in his cynical soul. 

"This is…" Danny says, because he can't take the silence anymore.

"Nice?" Steve finishes.

"Sure, nice."

"You don't think this is nice?"

"No, no. This is nice. Very nice. Completely nice."

Steve snorts. "You're an idiot."

"Hey," Danny protests. Steve's grip on his hand is tight enough that he can't pull away. "That was uncalled for."

"Really?"

Steve pulls him in and kisses him again, and this, Danny thinks, this is never going to get old.

"We could have been doing this for a long time, you realize," Steve says when he pulls back. "What brought this on now?"

Danny almost doesn't want to tell him, but he knows Steve's dog-with-a-bone routine when someone refuses to provide information. He bites the bullet. "You remember that night I showed up to a bust without my radio? I didn't forget it. I thought..."

"Wait," Steve says, cogwheels visibly turning in his head. "You thought I'd asked you on a date that night?"

Danny hangs his head in shame. "Don't remind me."

It's not at all funny. Danny thought that Steve, of all people, would be the one to get this, but Steve is laughing. He's laughing hard, even though Danny glares back something fierce. 

"Are you telling me," Steve says finally, "the one time I didn't actually do anything, you caught on? That was your only clue?"

"What do you mean, my only clue?"

Steve breathes in. Breathes out. Shakes his head. "I'm going to have to fire you."

"What?"

"I've got no choice. If you're that bad a detective..."

"Hey! I'm a great detective."

"Your daughter has had her own room in my house for six months, Danny."

Steve's eyes are warm, and Danny, well, Danny is an idiot.

"Oh," he says.

"So," Steve says, waggling his eyebrows. "You wanna hook up now?"

Danny shoves him into the sand.

Then he jumps after him. 

It takes a while before they get up again.

*

It's a beautiful, peaceful, perfect morning. Grace watches Steve eat fruit salad for breakfast while Danny is preparing her a sandwich.

They explained things to her the night before. Relationship things. Danny was glad that he had that talk about same-sex couples with her a few weeks earlier. She took everything in stride, and Danny breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Danny puts the plate with the sandwich down in front of Grace and sits across from her with his cup of coffee.

Grace sizes them both up, grasps her sandwich in both hands and asks, casual as they come, "Are you going to have a commitment ceremony now?"

Steve freezes with his spoon in his mouth. The sight is hilarious, but Danny is too distracted to appreciate it right now.

"There should be cake," Grace decides and takes a bite from her sandwich. With her mouth full, she adds, "I like vanilla."

Steve removes the spoon from his mouth. "I like vanilla, too," he says, like that's in any way a helpful answer to her question.

Danny puts his head in his hands. "You handle this," he says, because Steve totally deserves it, and because Rachel is not the only one anymore who can delegate the responsibility of explaining awkward things to their little girl. 

When Danny peeks through his fingers, Steve is sitting up straighter, eyes on Grace. He is starting in on the explanation, and it hits Danny then, right between the eyes.

He really is part of that cat, his and Steve's cat, and it's so very much alive.


End file.
